


A Little Past Saturday

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4577031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is found in late 1946. He shows up at the SSR looking for his best girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Past Saturday

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the middle of the Agent Carter series; is therefore not entirely canon compliant.

If Howard hadn’t been a genius, he would have been actually worried when he had to make an emergency landing of his plane on the way to recover a lost bad baby from Greenland of all places. As it was, he was thankful that his mother’s warning to always have a fresh supply of blankets in the car during cold weather had carried over to his plane stocking habits. They would come in handy while he made repairs.

Besides, he reasoned, he’d landed next to another plane - long since abandoned, by the initial looks of things - so he had plenty of scrap metal to make repairs to the engines. He was idly wondering who had managed to sabotage his plane in the first place when he realized the actual significance of the plane he’d landed next to.

Howard had long since given up on ever finding the plane, of course. He’d thought, initially, that finding Steve’s plane would give him and Peggy some closure. But as 1945 had given way to 1946, both of them moved on with their lives.

“If Captain Rogers was anything like the man you have described him as, it is what he would want,” Jarvis was fond of saying.

Easy for Jarvis to say, Howard privately thought. Jarvis and Anna got their happy ending. But that was a cruel and vicious and unfair thought, so Howard only voiced it internally, and externally, he followed Jarvis’ advice. He embraced his new world, he sent birthday cards and outrageous holiday presents to the Howling Commandos and remained surprised and delighted when returned the gesture.

He could buy whatever he wanted these days, but he would always remember when that hadn’t been the case. The various Hanukkah presents from the team he’d never really been a part of, but had always felt honored to contribute to the fight of, would never not be appreciated.

Of course, there were some gifts that were better than others, and it was on a day in 1946, not long after Peggy had kicked him out of her apartment and her life, that Howard ended up kneeling beside the very best gift the universe could ever conjure up even in his wildest of dreams.

The plane, of course, was ruined, but there were better planes. Howard had a better plane, in fact, and was kneeling on the floor of it looking into blue eyes he never expected to see again, when Steve blinked up sleepily and asked, “What happened to your eye?”

“It’s a long story, pal,” Howard answered, and spared him the details. “The short version is that I fucked up and I deserved it.”

Steve was shivering and his movements were still shaky as he sat up, but his smile was steady. “You piss Peggy off then?”

“You bet,” Howard agreed. “But no worries. As soon as we repair this baby, we’re going to get you back to New York, and she can explain it to you in person.”

“Might be mad at me too,” Steve said, wrapping himself in one of Howard’s blankets. “I get the idea that it’s a little past Saturday.”

Howard thought of the last conversation he’d had with Peggy and resisted the urge to laugh. “I think she’ll forgive you.”

“I’m glad Phillips let her have some time off,” Steve added. “Maybe New York’ll charm her enough that she’ll want to spend even more time there after the war’s done.”

The bruise on Howard’s eye ached even more than it had when Peggy had punched him. “About that, pal … “

~

The trip back to New York was a long one, made longer by the fact that Steve had to absorb the fact that an entire year had passed since the end of the war. He’d been missing - presumed dead, Howard said - for an entire year.

So much could happen in a year, and Steve felt sicker to his stomach than he had since getting the super soldier serum thinking about how much had probably changed. Not because he worried about getting caught up, but because he had missed so much of the important parts of the lives of people he’d cared for.

He’d missed the chance to testify on Howard’s behalf. He’d missed the chance to celebrate the end of the war with the Commandos. He’d missed Phillips’ retirement party.

He’d missed a year of Saturday dances with Peggy.

“Steve, you gotta talk,” Howard insisted when they were about 20 minutes away from New York. “It’s weird enough that I stumbled upon a ghost. I can’t have stumbled upon a silent ghost too.”

Howard’s hands gripped the controls a little more tightly, and Steven noted that Howard wasn’t at all like the carefree man that he’d known.

A lot could happen in a year, Steve reminded himself. Clearing his throat, he looked out the window of the plane. “I just … I missed a lot. I can’t wait to see Peggy, but I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to be able to make up for the time I was gone.”

“Wasn’t your fault, Steve.”

“No, I made my choice, and I don’t regret it, but…” Steve ran his fingers over his shield as he searched for the right words. “But I know what it was like to grieve, and Peggy was there for me when I needed to.”

Nobody had been there for her, Steve didn’t say, but he had discerned that much from the conversation. Besides, like him, Peggy had spent her life trying to prove that she was strong. There were only a few people Steve would have leaned on, and the same was true about Peggy.

“Well, you know the British. Stiff upper lip. Keep calm and carry on,” Howard said in what was supposed to be the most dismissive way possible, but the problem with Stark was that Steve knew him too well for that to work. “Sides, she’s been keeping busy with the SSR.”

At least that much hadn’t changed, Steve thought. The fact that Peggy had found a place for herself after the war made him very happy. He knew that none of them had been very sure of what they were going to do after the war, and that Peggy specifically had wondered what her opportunities would be.

Of course, he’d had ideas about what their future might be, but … well, maybe they’d talk of that later.

“I always knew she’d be okay. No matter what,” Steve said confidently.

“She’s had to work pretty hard for it.”

“That’s always been the case with Peggy,” Steve reminded him. “But she’s worked so hard, maybe I … maybe I should wait until she gets done with her day at work. Maybe … ”

The idea seemed torturous at best. There was nothing more that Steve wanted to do than find Peggy, grovel for forgiveness, and let her kiss him until the remaining coldness left his bones.

“Oh, no, you should definitely show up at work.” There was something smug in Howard’s voice, but Steve couldn’t quite place it. “She’ll kick my ass if she knows you were hiding with me for even a second.”

“That’s true. And she has already punched you once.”

“See? You don’t want me to get a second punch, do you?” Howard demanded. “Besides, her coworkers … they’re the type to really benefit from a rousing Captain America speech.”

~

It had been a terribly long day, and Peggy intended to be at the SSR only long enough to drop off the lunch orders before going back out. There was something not quite right about Miss Underwood and Peggy had every intention of figuring out exactly what was going on there.

But it hadn’t been so long of a day that she didn’t notice the change in the atmosphere of the women she passed every day on her way into the offices.

“What’s going on, Ruth?” Peggy asked.

“Oh, well, we had a surprise visitor. No, no, nothing to be upset about. Quite the opposite, actually.”

Peggy could swear that Ruth actually winked at her. But she didn’t have a whole lot of time to wonder about that, before she was walking into a room and hearing a voice that came straight out of her sweetest dreams and worst nightmares.

“ - without her guidance, her support, and her moral fiber, I’d still still be standing on a stage selling - well not war bonds anymore, but something. And there wouldn’t even be an SSR without her, so I don’t know what right you have to talk about her that way!”

The door to the chief’s office was closed, but the indignation in … Steve’s voice was loud and clear.

It was the first time in Peggy’s life that she’d ever felt like she might faint. Fortunately, the urge passed and Peggy was jerked back down into reality when she heard Sousa at her right.

“He’s been at it for twenty minutes, you know,” Sousa mused. “Taking turns yelling at both the chief and Thompson. I thought about telling him that you liked to fight your own battles„ but who am I to argue with Captain America?”

Hearing Sousa refer to the man in the room as Captain America broke the part of her that wanted to faint, and the urge to cry lingered suspiciously near. But every single agent in the room was looking at her, and she refused to give them the satisfaction.

“He’s always been a bit dramatic,” she answered. “They … they know it’s him then? And not a … trick?”

Her eyes didn’t move from the man in the Captain America uniform, but she could feel Sousa shrug beside her. “The metal is apparently the right kind on the shield. Also, showed up in pretty … ah, let’s say his clothes don’t smell the best. A year frozen will do that to you, apparently.” There was a pause and Peggy knew it was her turn to speak. But she couldn’t, quite yet, and Sousa continued. “You were the first person he asked for.”

She set the bag of orders on the nearest desk and walked into the chief’s office.

Steve turned immediately, and words come out of Thompson and the Chief’s mouth, but Peggy didn’t register them, because Steve’s angry face immediately softened when he saw her.

She had often wondered what the first words to him would be, if only she could have him back for one more day. The ones that came out of her were far more pedestrian than the ones in her imagination.

“You’re an unexpected sight,” she said to him.

“Well. I had to come,” he told her. “I made a promise to my best girl. I know I missed a few Saturdays, but -”

“It’s okay,” she answered, and despite her promise not to make a fool of herself, her throat tightened and she could feel the tears building. Because any lingering doubt she had was gone. There were three people in the world who knew about her date, and Phillips wouldn’t have told a soul.

“For heaven’s sake, Marge, now is not the time to get all emotional,” Thompson said, and his voice sounded no more dismissive than it ever did.

But Peggy was used to it. Steve was not.

Thompson made such a gratifying thump colliding into the wall after Steve’s fist connected with his nose. Peggy could see that Steve was set to throw another punch, despite the fact that the man was still struggling to get up, but she laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

“I can fight my own battles, Steve,” she said firmly.

He had the good sense to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, Peggy. I just … ” he shook his head. “A year of being frozen didn’t make me like bullies anymore than I already did.”

“Now listen here. I don’t care who you say you are,” the chief interrupted. “I’m chief around here and - ”

“I’m a captain,” Steve answered. “Pretty sure I outrank you.”

“You’re going to have to report down to the labs,” the chief continued, his voice raising in the manner of someone who was used to being listened to. “If you put up a fight, you and Agent Carter are -”

“Captain Rogers and I have a lot to catch up on, and we’re going to do that now,” Peggy interrupted steadily, and the shock in the chief’s eyes was a delight.

“You can try to stop us, of course, but you must know that we’ve fought bigger groups than this,” Steve said confidently.

“Yes, I believe those exploits are lovingly detailed on the Captain America Adventure Hour,” Thompson said sarcastically.

Steve didn’t know what that was, of course, but he still looked annoyed enough to want to punch Thompson again.

It figured that Thompson listened to that dreck. That as almost deserving of another Steve punch to the nose, to be honest.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” she assured Steve as they turned to leave without so much as a reaction from anyone other than a salute from Sousa.

And she would. But first there were reunions to be had - and Dottie Underwood to investigate.

~

Six months later, Edwin folded up the newspaper and sighed across the table at Anna. “I do wish they would make up their minds about which of my friends are traitors,” he muttered rebelliously. “It gets so hard to keep track when the papers are constantly changing the story to sell the most copies.”

Anna looked over at the paper’s headlines. “You know Captain America and Captain Britain?” she asked.

“That’s an absurd name and I refuse to use it.”

“All the papers are calling her that,” Anna reminded him. “It’s rather romantic, don’t you think?”

“Her name is Margaret. Peggy if you are familiar with her, but this Captain Britain stuff is just … rubbish.”

Anna rolled her eyes fondly. “You never mentioned that you knew them.”

“Oh, well.” He rubbed his ear uncomfortably. “They were … acquaintances of Mister Stark, of course.”

“Mmhm. Of course.” Anna took a drink of her tea and offered, “When they are cleared of their treason and no longer suspected of being communists, you should invite them over to try some of your goulash.”

“That sounds lovely,” he assured her.

“In the meantime, you could make me more breakfast,” Anna suggested.

“Of course, dear.”

He folded the paper over, hoped the Captains would be joining Howard in the ranks of the exonerated soon, and wondered what the hell kind of business they had in Russia in the first place.


End file.
